Wednesday, March 14, 2007

UMD Keeps on Rockin'

My apologies for not getting this post up sooner. University of Maryland SSDP is always setting a great example for SSDP chapters to follow and recently they have added another notch under their belts.

Stacia Cosner and gang succeeded in getting a resolution passed in their Student Government asking the administration to make marijuana penalties equal to that of underage drinking. That is a huge step in this ongoing battle to end a rather ignorant policy.

Heres what Stacia had to say:

Many of you are familiar with the ongoing battle we have been fighting here at UMD to get the changes implemented from our SAFER initiative, passed in April 2006 with 65% of the student body vote. The administration has instructed us to go through difficult, confusing, bureaucratic red tape in order to officially get our changes in place. I'll spare you all of the ridiculous details surrounding our efforts of the past two years. Long story short - this is one huge step in our quest - as now it is going to be almost impossible for the administrators to brush us off any longer! Please check out an Op-Ed that one of our chapter members, Rebecca Ogle, got published last week, it eloquently states what the resolution was concerning: "Sensibility on Cannabis"

The RHA win was and is a huge victory and cause for celebration for us, but it was just a huge step, towards the ultimate goal of ACTUALLY reflecting what the students want in our school's policies. Now, the process begins with the administration.

If the administration blocks these changes at this point, they are blatantly ignoring the students' will . And we - as students - will not stand for that!